


sitting in a tree

by etben



Category: Castle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etben/pseuds/etben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OR: How Ryan and Esposito did it backwards, but got it right in the end;</p><p>OR: One week, three cases, and the inevitable eventual holiday snow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sitting in a tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ren/gifts).



> Written with best Yuletide wishes for Ren, in the hopes that this is more or less what you wanted. Thanks (as ever) to J, who banished me to the kitchen to write and then told me it was good.

**1\. with a baby carriage**

"—yeah, Esposito's on the phone with CPS, trying to—honestly, Castle, are you even listening to any of this?" He nods, but he's clearly more interested in leaning over and making silly faces at the baby in the carrier. Beckett glares at him.

"Gootchie-gootchie-goo," he says, ignoring her, "who's the cutest little piece of evidence at the precinct?"

The baby blows a spit bubble at him, which Javi thinks shows taste.

"Thank you for holding, detective," Mary-Ann says, coming back on the line and cutting through the schmaltzy holiday hold music. "Looks like we don't have any matches right now, but I've put a flag in the database, so if anything comes up we'll let you know, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Javi says, "Thanks a million, Mary-Ann—"

"No problem," she says. "Stay warm, Javi."

"You too," and he hangs up the phone and leans across the desk just in time to pick the kid up before she can really start screaming at Castle. "Hey," he says, "hey, calm down, life's not so bad." She pulls back and stares fuzzily at him, mouth working unhappily, but he pats her gently on the back and she relaxes against his shoulder.

"You're good with her," Castle says, and Javi shrugs.

"He's an uncle, like, seven times already," Ryan says, hanging up his phone, "And that was Lanie—she thinks she's got an ID for us."

The baby chews thoughtfully on Javi's collar while they try to figure out how James White—28, caucasian, single, part-time video store clerk—wound up dead of asphyxiation in a hotel with a baby on the bed next to him. Javi lets her—it's an old shirt, and it's seen a lot worse. She falls asleep while he's making more phone calls, but he keeps holding her.

If he tries to put her back down, she'll probably wake up again.

They're running White's financials, coming up with nothing, nothing, and more nothing, when she wakes back up, tilting her head around and grizzling quietly.

"Here, can you just—" Kevin looks nervous, but he holds his arms out and lets Javi shape them around the kid. "I'll go heat up something for her," Javi says. "Just don't drop her, you'll be fine."

"Yeah," Kevin says. "Sure." He does fine, though, even if the baby is kind of gnawing on his ear by the time Javi gets back with the bottle.

"You're a natural, bro," Javi says, and shows Kevin how to feed her. The world gets quiet and calm around them, one of those weird lulls that the bullpen sometimes has, like there's nothing in the world but him and Kevin and this baby, like maybe—

"Oh my _God_ ," Castle says, bringing reality back in with a rush. "Oh my God, she's the _murder weapon_?" He stares at the baby, who thus far has done nothing but cry and spit up whenever he comes near her. "That is the coolest thing _ever_."

And it really kind of is, Javi thinks, looking down at her and Kevin. Almost, at least.

 **2\. then comes marriage**

"Yeah, Matt and Alan did the Massachusetts thing a few years ago, I think," one of the vic's coworkers says, so Javi gets to spend a few hours on the phone with the JPs of MA, looking for a marriage license for the dead man and the prime suspect.

He comes up with Winston's Ear, population 249, and Doris Jeffries, age 76.

"She doesn't have a fax," he tells Beckett, "but she's sure she remembers the guys, so I was thinking we could—"

"Do a little road trip? Great," she says, and talks right over him whenever he tries to explain his _actual_ idea.

"Yeah," Kevin says, "but then you'd have owed a favor to Boston, and you know how they are about that crap," which is a valid point. And it's not as though Kevin's a bad guy to have on a road trip—he can't drive for shit, but he knows all the radio stations and is good at keeping a conversation going without letting it get obnoxious.

(He's incredibly, tragically wrong about the Knicks' chances this year, but that argument gets them most of the way through Connecticut, so Javi can't really complain.)

NBC's been forecasting snow all week, but it hasn't hit yet, and traffic's light, so they make it up to Winston's Ear around noon.

"It's closed," Javi says, and Kevin stops halfway up the steps to stare at him. "She told me on the phone," he explains. "Want to grab a bite?"

"I could eat," Kevin says, and so they head across the street to the town's only restaurant.

The food's not bad, and they eat in comfortable silence. Kevin keeps glancing off over Javi's shoulder, and he blushes when Javi catches him at it.

"Just keeping an eye out," he says, even though Javi's told him that Doris won't be back until 1. That's Kevin, though: likes to check, even when he knows better.

"Are you two waiting for Doris?" The waitress pauses in the middle of setting their check on the table. "She takes a long lunch by the park, but she should be back—"

"By one, yeah," Kevin says. "So I've been told."

"Be patient, bro," Javi says. "What, you want to get back to work?" Kevin just rolls his eyes.

"No, but I want to get the certificate and get back home before the storm hits," he says. "What, you want to be stuck here until Monday?"

"—There's a three-day waiting period for marriage licenses," the waitress puts in. "I mean," she adds, when they both just stare at her, "um, if you're the two guys Doris was talking about."

"…we're with the NYPD," Javi says eventually, after a long moment where neither he nor Kevin say anything at all.

"Oh," she says, flushing furiously, "oh, of course, I'm so sorry—"

"No problem," Kevin says, looking over Javi's shoulder again. His ears are bright red.

"Yeah," Javi says. "No big deal."

 **3\. first comes love**

"—But I think I'm going to need to go back in," Kevin hisses, "Tomlin's hiding something else, I can tell, and if I can just—"

"Are you _nuts_?" Javi pulls back to stare at Kevin, who's not wearing a vest, who's not even wearing a fucking wire because their mark works for the most paranoid bunch of nerds this side of ComiCon. "No, fuck that," he says, covering his mike so that Kevin can't try to convince Beckett of his absolutely ridiculous plan. "That is not—they're armed to the fucking _teeth_ , Kev," he says.

"So give me your backup," Kevin says, and actually fucking _reaches_ for it before Javi can grab his wrist.

" _Guys, watch out,_ " Beckett says in his ear, but he ignores her in favor of staring Kevin down.

"Seriously, Kev," he says. "These people have crappy self-control and a whole lot of guns. We can get what we need from Sharpe, we can—"

"We _can't_ ," Kevin says. "Espo, you know we can't—by the time we can get to her, they'll have locked this thing down, you _know_ that—"

Javi does know, he _does_ , but he also knows that sending his partner back in, unarmed, unprotected, with no wire and no backup, makes him grit his teeth hard enough that his jaw aches.

 _"Ryan? Esposito? Are you listening?"_

"Give me half an hour," Kevin says. "Half an hour, forty-five minutes, tops—"

"Half an hour," Javi says, firmly.

Kevin smiles at him. "Yeah, fine, half an hour," he agrees.

" _Esposito, there's a security guard—"_ Beckett's voice penetrates just as they hear the crunch of feet at the mouth of the alley. Javi freezes, trying to assess the situation, but Kevin just leans in, smooth and easy, and kisses him firmly on the mouth.

"Hey, lovebirds, get a move on," the security guard says, sounding more bored than anything else. "There's a motel down the—fucking _faggots_ ," which is just enough warning for Javi to shove Kevin behind him before the asshole starts shooting.

"Sorry about that," Kevin says, afterwards, once the shooting is over and the guard—and the entire staff of EnterPrize, bunch of slimy jerks—has been taken in for assault on an officer and conspiracy to commit murder.

Javi almost asks _for what?_ , but he's seen the looks that Castle is giving them—amused, confused, gleeful. The man's an internationally famous author, but he acts like a fucking teenager sometimes.

"Enh, whatever," he says. "We got the assholes, didn't we? Which we wouldn't have been able to do if they weren't a bunch of homophobic douchebags."

"Yeah, but—" Kevin makes a half-hearted gesture between the two of them. "I mean—it's not something you want, I know, and—" He shrugs and looks away. "And I'm sorry for pushing that on you, I guess."

And, oh. _Oh._

"Yeah, well." Javi tries not to grin, he really does, but somehow he just can't help it. "Next time, less with the gunfire and psychos, maybe."

Kevin stares at him, eyes wide, ears turning steadily pinker. "Oh," he says finally. "Is that—is that all it takes?"

"Ryan and Espo, sitting in a tree," Castle sings, wandering over to the two of them, "K-I-S-S-I-N—hey!"

"Well, and maybe not in an alley," Javi says. "Come on, let's get out of here."

(They leave Castle in the snowbank. Beckett will get him out, and they have other things to do.)


End file.
